Attorney General Loretta Lynch lauded the efforts as “critical” ways to help those leaving prison adjust to life in the outside world. But, like many criminal justice overhaul efforts, they might be short-lived under the Trump administration.

Lynch discussed the changes at an event about criminal justice reform at the White House Wednesday, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the overhaul of halfway houses in a memo to the acting director of the Bureau of Prisons. Reducing recidivism has been a priority of Lynch’s Justice Department, which paid several outside consultants to study Bureau of Prisons programs and halfway houses and recommend changes.

Lynch said she was “really excited because these are changes that we are making about how we handle reentry within the Bureau of Prisons that will live on past this administration, that are going to become part of the DNA of the Bureau of Prisons.”

But Donald Trump and his pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., have in past public statements indicated disagreement with some of the Justice Department’s efforts to reduce recidivism. Sessions, in an October 2015 congressional hearing on sentencing laws and the prison system, said he supported efforts to keep offenders from repeating their misdeeds, but he questioned the necessity of some programs.

“Do you think . . . nobody’s ever tried a program to reduce recidivism?” he asked. He added later: “My observation over the years of attempts to have education and other kind of character-building programs in prison before they’re released doesn’t seem to have much benefit.”

In an interview with The Washington Post, Yates said she believed the incoming administration would nonetheless maintain the changes. She said research had shown inmates participating in correctional education programs had 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than those who did not, and that would mean cost savings for the Bureau of Prisons.

The Trump transition team did not return a message seeking comment.

The Justice Department said it planned to build a “semiautonomous school district within the federal prison system” and would offer programs for literacy, high school diplomas and postsecondary education. The district will have its own organizational chart and even a superintendent, Amy Lopez, who worked as an educator in the Texas prison school system, the Justice Department said.

“Education is the key to successfully coming back home for so many people,” Lynch said.

Yates said the effort would not require any new money, but a shifting of other resources.

The department also said it would pay for every federal inmate leaving the Bureau of Prisons to obtain a birth certificate and state-issued identification card, making it possible for them to secure employment and housing, register for school and open bank accounts.

Yates said Wednesday the effort would cost $1 million to $1.5 million initially, but it would save the Bureau of Prisons $19 million a year. That is because inmates would be able to find jobs and housing more quickly, which would allow the prison system to transfer them to home confinement with less delay, Yates said.

Yates also directed the Bureau of Prisons to adopt “clear, uniform standards” for halfway-house providers, and to collect and publish data measuring performance. Until now, Yates wrote, the Bureau of Prisons had not required halfway houses to provide the same base level of standards – instead employing a patchwork of requirements from those in individual contracts.